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Atypical Geek writes "Alec Liu of Fox News reports that Amazon, Facebook and Google are considering a coordinated blackout of the internet to protest SOPA, the Stop Online Privacy Act being debated in Congress. From the article: 'Such a move is drastic. And though the details of exactly how it would work are unclear, it's already under consideration, according to Markham Erickson, the executive director of NetCoalition, a trade association that includes the likes of Google, PayPal, Yahoo, and Twitter.
With the Senate debating the SOPA legislation at the end of January, it looks as if the tech industry's top dogs are finally adding bite to their bark, something CNET called "the nuclear option." "When the home pages of Google.com, Amazon.com, Facebook.com, and their Internet allies simultaneously turn black with anti-censorship warnings that ask users to contact politicians about a vote in the U.S. Congress the next day on SOPA," Declan McCullagh wrote, "you'll know they're finally serious."'"

They should start by targeting the entire U.S. and other "pro-SOPA" countries and leave the other countries alone. Why punish people all over the world just because a small minority of people in the U.S. are corrupt douchebag cockheads?

Targeting only D.C. isn't going to do much...the vast majority of the people, particularly legislators, that are supporting this legislation hardly even use the web.

You must be new here, just last year we wrote the copyright legislation for Spain and New Zealand, and shoved it down their throats (they passed it, grudgingly). We've twisted China's arm about movie piracy in the past, and plenty of other countries as well. We're terrible about installing dictators in countries, but we're really good at writing laws and making them law in other countries. What copyright law passes here in our bellwether country becomes law in 20-70% of the rest of the world.

Our government (NZ) passed it eagerly. We also did some blackout-style protesting, but the bill was passed anyway because of the emergency powers available to the politicians after the devastating Christchurch earthquake.

That move alone absolutely sickened me, and I have lost all faith in our politicians.

Same here dude. It blows my mind how little awareness there was of the issue. We desperately needed a nation-wide blackout of internet services to wake people up. But it never happened. And well, now we have both censorship and copyright cops.

New Zealanders really sucked it all up. The information is out there (wikileaks) but noone takes notice or cares. New Zealand has a real apathy towards politics.

They should start by targeting the entire U.S. and other "pro-SOPA" countries and leave the other countries alone. Why punish people all over the world just because a small minority of people in the U.S. are corrupt douchebag cockheads?

Because

A) These are American-based companies and will have to follow SOPA even in their overseas operations.B) Once SOPA passes in the US, the copyright industry will immediately move to have it implemented in Europe in the name of harmonizing. And the European corrupt douchebag cockheads will go for it. The rest of the world will follow, because no country has any shortage of corrupt douchebag cockheads.

Yes, and the harmonization process involves negotiating treaty consent in a closed process, then bringing it back and claiming in the face of democratic opposition "we've already promised this" without any democratic consent in the first place.

I wouldn't complain about my life suffering a DOS day for these companies to band together and make a point.

Because SOPA is already branded as an excuse for politician in several EU country to make a similar legislation. Many EU countries are US-followers when it comes to technological laws, especially those that pretend to deal with copyright infringement.

Please do it worldwide. Then I won't see Sarkozy saying things like "The US did SOPA and everything went alright"

Make it global from day 1. SOPA would be a problem not just for Americans, but for everyone.

I'm pretty sure that if Google, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Wikipedia all went down for a day, even Washington would realize that SOPA can't stand. And if they went on a blackout until SOPA was defeated (with the implied or explicit threat of shutting down permanently should SOPA pass), defeating SOPA would become the #1 priority of Congress. Because *NOBODY* would vote for "the Senator that killed the Internet".

Make it global from day 1. SOPA would be a problem not just for Americans, but for everyone.

I'm pretty sure that if Google, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and Wikipedia all went down for a day, even Washington would realize that SOPA can't stand.

I'm not sure, you have to balance the dislike for having those sites down... against the amazing productivity gains that would result! If they all went down for a day, we'd have flying cars, cold fusion, and warp drive the next day.

But I didn't think the actual sites would be down, just the front pages.

>politicians tolerate being bribed but they are highly allergic against being blackmailed.

I think you are wrong about this. History shows that Newscorp has a long record of invading politicians' private lives, digging dirt they want to keep quiet, and using threats of publication of said dirt to affect politicians' votes.

I think if you made a list of the politicians supporting SOPA you would find it correlated strongly with the list of politicians which Newscorp have some dirt on.

They're not trying to persuade the senators directly, they're trying to make the issues known to the general public. The average internet user likely hasn't even heard of SOPA, much less realize the implications it entails. On the other hand, hundreds of millions use sites such as google, yahoo, and twitter daily. If instead of their normal behavior, all of those people using those pages get a notice about SOPA, a quarter will likely read it at least once, and a quarter of those might actually understand why that's a bad thing, and a tenth of those might actually take the time to try to contact their representatives about it. You're looking at potentially millions of constituents, all trying to contact their senators within a couple hour time frame, the day before the issue goes to a vote.

The vast majority of politicians are in it to make money, not make the country a better place. That means accepting donations and favors, and staying in office as long as possible to accept more donations and favors. Argue that all you want, but the fact is that politicians don't get paid all that much, yet Senators all live very well, well beyond what a $175k/yr salary would suggest. If a particular bill becomes unpopular, they aren't going to support it and risk losing their position in the next election, regardless of how much lobbyists are otherwise pushing it.

I hope they do and I hope you are right. Nothing could be better for the future of our country than for the impressionable youth to realize that their freedoms and access are protected only at the whim of corporate policy and fickle government oversight. I could actually hope the coming years would reflect the will of the people if the youth of today were sufficiently shocked.

I'm still waiting to hear why things like Minimum Wage and EPA regulations are "job killers" while things like SOPA aren't...

The companies that are going to be most effected by this stupid bullshit are the few American companies that are actually doing well right now. I thought we had to make America "open for business"? Are these not businesses as well, or do they not donate enough to qualify for that kind of consideration?

It's just so retarded on so many levels. The web brings in 100 times more revenue than the MAFIAA does. Why are we going to cripple it? It makes no sense whatsoever...

Minimum wage 'kills' the 8 jobs that would have been around if McDonalds could pay only 2$ an hour instead of minimum wage.

EPA regulations prevent companies from hiring more people with the money they use to clean up and meet regulations.

Both of the above are reasons why corporations need to be beaten into the ground and held to very strict, and very punishing legal standards. And why the should NEVER EVER be allowed to participate in politics in ANY WAY.

Ooooh, this is actually a scary prospect. This is a scenario where corporations threaten to shut down infrastructure in order to interfere with Congressional decision making process.
It fills me with great satisfaction when congress critters can't google for the closest ladyboy escort service on their smartphone while they are supposed to pursue this nations best interests. And yes, I intentionally imply gross negligence, rottenness and hypocrisy when talking of elected representatives.
But the line being crossed here is scary. They could also threaten a black out in favor for SOPA and the likes. We can't on the one hand complain about undue influence of corporations on the political process and on the other hand welcome it when it suits us. This is hypocrisy, too.
Now black out that Google front page already!

Simple: Each one of the major players, put up a black splash page with info about SOPA and WHAT to do about it... That's all, No Google searches, no Facebook statuses, No buying on Amazon/eBay. If you go to one of these sites ALL you get is the black splash page... EasyPeasy...

It's not that simple. There are contractual issues in play, with third parties who pay places like Amazon and eBay to provide services that are part of their businesses. I doubt that those agreements have clauses in them that say things like "We retain the right to fail to provide you with these contracted-for services while we participate in a political protest." Lots of moving parts involved, here.

Nope. That doesn't mean rattling your sabers didn't have an effect. Nobody launched a single nuke during the Cold War, but both the explicit and implicit threats obviously had a huge effect. They don't really want to go nuclear any more than anyone wanted WWIII.

It should be called SOAA - Stop Online Activity Act, because that's the real agenda here. Companies that failed to adapt to a changed market and blaming the internet for their failures and want it banned.

I would think Facebook could implement something geographically that based on what they know about you, tell you who to call to get your Facebook account restored and have it be the senators of the state you live in, and the house of representatives for your zip code.

That could be spectacular. I mean the phone systems would melt down. I find this idea rather funny.

I have no idea what you're talking about about this 'failbook wall' thing (I've never used Facebook), but I do know that Facebook, along with Google and Amazon, probably has the most to lose because of SOPA. As I understand it, it would make them responsible for the actions of their users, which would be completely unmanageable for them.

This is why SOPA will fail. These companies cannot afford to let it pass because even if it did their only option would be noncompliance. This threat of a blackout is a warning. If they do go through with it, SOPA will be dead. Almost every single congressman's mailbox/e-mail server will be flooded with messages, it would be like a legal DoS.

It's good to see these companies working together on a good cause. Now they need to also work together to eradicate one of the most evil companies on the internet today, and one of the architects of SOPA: GoDaddy.

Google, Facebook, Amazon,Yahoo, etc should continue as normal but show the supports of censorship just how much fun being censored can be!

Google/Yahoo can simply don't return any results that include the names of Senators, and Representatives that supported the act, bonus points if you can still detect NEGATIVE news about them and return those results, don't return listings for products from companies that support the ACT on Amazon/Google/Yahoo, Facebook stop having the profiles come up in searches and don't let any posts hit news feeds even to people who are all ready friends or followers.

Frankly after such a black out of those organizations I'd be real surprised if the thing passes, and if it does is not repealed in a week. It would also give a big boost to those who don't support this stuff as it will put them front and center before the consumer for a change.

A full blackout is a reasonable response, because, in the language that is so popular with politicians, SOPA is going to result in excessive regulation that will cost jobs and likely cause significant increases in the cost of services, perhaps to the point where those services will no longer be able to provided on an ad supported or free to consumer basis.

The only impediment is how to make this coordinated. For instance all the Google, Bing, and Yahoo are going to have cooperate. Otherwise any blackout may simply result in loss of customers for one service, not a clear message to call one's representative. I suspect that if the services choose a minute during the day when no results are returned, only a message to call your representative and state your opinion on SOPA, the bill will die. If Google and MS tell users that search will die if SOPA is passed, no amount of politicking will be able to counteract that message.

I'd even go a step further. For 24 hours leave up a little button beside each link stating that you feel this person has violated your copyright. Anyone can click it, allow them to leave a small comment explaining why they think "their" copyright has been violated. When the 24 hours is up that page is delisted for the next 24, pointing to a fake seizure page detailing the "reason".

I'm sure 24 hours of crappy reasons like "I've decided to act on behalf of Colgate and we feel that Oral-B violates

Plus, some of the complaints are bullshit; for instance, the whole "serving information directly" thing, i.e., the way typing in a company's NYSE abbreviation brings up the little Google Finance thing with the current stock price and recent trends instead of giving results to a bunch of financial firms and shit. For the vast majority of users, they don't want to go digging around for a fucking answer to a simple question, they just want the answer. Typing "2 + 2" does not mean "give me links to online calculators."

The only companies complaining about shit like that are companies that are trying to monetize public information, which is bullshit anyway. Forcing information to be obfuscated so as to force people to dig around on random third party sites seems like a step completely in the wrong direction in terms of progress.

I can practically guarantee that loss or suspension of an account at the sole discretion of the provider is in their terms of service. Completely legal, and already agreed to by the candidates. Game, set, match.

... and do it. Either you have a backbone or you don't. Pick a day, middle of the week, say Jan 12th, and just do it. Announce you're doing it, and watch the others fall in line. True leadership doesn't wait.

The Tao demands that you exert your influence and spend the least possible amount of effort to accomplish a task. In this case, just saying that you consider a blackout may be enough to coax those technologically oblivious people. Leadership is not about acting, but about influencing.

... and underlines the travesty that democracy has become. It's bad enough corporations write the legislation now they're going to effectively start voting on them by themselves.. this should scare the living daylights out of us and not be some kind a source for celebration.

You are confused. The fact that corporations do write legislation tailored to their needs is an obvious sign that the government is corrupt. Yet, having corporations react to the legislation that corrupt representatives are forcing onto a country is hardly any reason to worry about. You may complain that these companies are actively engaged in the democratic process, but this is the very definition of activism [wikipedia.org], which is supposed to be one of those inalienable rights which, when expressed, represent what a democratic system is all about.

So, why exactly do you believe that activism is somehow worse than having corrupt politicians act as the lap dog of other corporations and special interest groups?

this should scare the living daylights out of us and not be some kind a source for celebration.

When their position is in the interests of all citizens, it is cause for celebration. When their position is not in our interests, then it's cause for protest. There's no need to always consider corporations as the enemy. Sometimes they're on the right side.

replacing DNS. With browser manufacturers onboard, it wouldn't be nearly as disruptive as one might think - particularly as nothing more than a new, preferred method that lived alongside the old method. Or another nuclear options is some combination of this and encrypting/onion-routing the entire Web, so that no one can tell where content is actually coming from.

What TFA mentions is an attempt to barter by threatening suicide - not war.

Americans do not believe in Democracy. Power to the masses to them equals ignorants ruling. They crafted a system where the rich (educated) elite is able to influence politics to the extreme, the "Lobby system" which is basically illegal in the rest of the world; rich people and corporations openly funding politicians (elsewhere a scandal).

Technically they don't define themselves as a democracy either, its a republic at best. A federal states union or something along those lines; each ruled by the wealthy (now corporations) in practice. A form of plutocracy, and it was intended that way. The rest is (corporate) propaganda to keep the masses controlled, and brag the world of how perfect they are and how undeveloped everyone else is.

It is a good idea, if the block shows a notice about the issue at hand. Wikipedia Italy did the same to protest something similar.

SOPA/PIPA in the end forces self-censorship, Americans might as well try an early taste of it. Also, nobody in their right mind should keep their e-business there, and its about time the world breaks with ICANN and switch to alternatives like OpenNIC.

I don't agree with that "nuclear" wording made by CNET. For a moment i though either the nuclear power industry was involved and would agree to a literal "blackout" or something unlikely involving weapons of mass destruction...

Also i hope they make clear this is something concerning USA legislative branch, aka Congress, and its their citizens the ones getting the worst. Might be painful at first, but The World will learn to route around America. So the "blackouts" should be limited to American IPs.

The notice might also show a list of who are supporting this bill, and call for boycotts, go daddy style; an action which seems to have gotten some people nervous.

I'm not "oh shit"-ing because there might be a global demonstration against what the US government is attempting to do. I'm "oh shit"-ing because many businesses are willing to interrupt their business to get notice and make a stand. Of course, this is so they can preserve what they have now, but this is also "oh shit" because they are seeing the future beyond tomorrow or the next quarter.

Google, Facebook and Amazon should block access from their public IPs, Facebook should shutdown accounts of SOPA supporters and Google should remove search results for them. This includes government IPs and accounts.

but for people like me losing those services will not be noticed. I think SOPA is insane but except for google I don't use any of the other services and google is not the only search shop in town. I can see mostly parents who rely on youtube and facebook as baby sitters being affected.

Why not just de-list all the SOPA supporters from Google and see what happens.

Not really. A private company can decide to shut down at any moment, there is nothing inherently wrong with this. When a government decides to shut down private companies at will though, that's when shit hits the proverbial fan.

What a bizarre thing to say. A blackout of a handful of websites, especially when self-imposed, is hardly "blocking the internet." It's not in the same league as the government fucking up DNS for everyone whether they consent or not.

I have to second what the AC said below. That is the most idiotic thing I've heard in a long time.

You're really asking us what the difference is between choosing not to say something or having your government making sure you don't say a given thing? If you are a US citizen AND you would say such a thing, I suggest you print out your Constitution and Declaration of Independence and henceforth use it to wipe your ass with.

What's the difference between Facebook, Google, et. al. taking themselves offline compared to the government doing it for them? From an end user's perspective, there is no difference.

It's the difference between a dude in Tunisia setting himself on fire in political protest and the cops taking him away to be disposed of quietly. Choice. Freedom. Yes, if you get freedom to decide for yourself, that means the people running Google and Facebook get freedom too. It's part of the overall concept. And when people see that Google, Facebook, et al are willing to hurt themselves to stop this legislation, it might pique a little interest.

What's the difference between a bunch of key employees of a company quitting at the same time, or that company laying them off? From the perspective of the customers of that company (who now can't get their products), there's no difference, but that's irrelevant. Employment is voluntary: if employees want to quit, they're allowed to, regardless of who it hurts. If the employer wants to fire everyone, they're allowed to (subject to employment law), even if it's shooting themselves in the foot. Same here: just because so many people use FB and Google services doesn't mean they're obligated to continue providing them in perpetuity.

No. In this case you havecompanies who ownthe resources in question deciding to make them unavailable. In the other case you have the government deciding to make the resources it does not own or control unavailable based onthe say-so of any given third party and a judge's approval.

What's interesting is that despite their size and financial power, the technology companies are very poorly organised and do very little lobbying when you compare them to the media companies. Which is why we get such horribly lopsided legislation such as SOPA.

If the tech. companies actually got themselves organised in Washington instead of pulling silly stunts, they might actually find they can get a lot more done.

>Ah, more fearmongering. No, my personal site will never be affected by SOPA because I generate all its content myself. My own photography, videos, thoughts and data feeds.

Someone, maybe me, maybe someone else accuses you of infringing, whether true or not. Your upstream gets 100 percent protection from liability if they cut you off and none if they don't, because that's how "good faith" is defined in the bill.

And I, as the accuser, do not suffer any consequences for false accusation.

Better watch out. Your camera manufacturer may change the EULA on the software your camera runs, claiming copyright on all photographs taken with the camera that you are granted license to use (you didn't really think that you OWN the camera, did you? No no silly boy, you merely bought a license to use it! All you base are belong to us!), therefore anything you post online is an infringement on THEIR copyright. Don't worry, I'm sure they'll let you off with a warning -- and a royalty fee for every photo you post on your website. Oh, and you website hosting company may change their EULA to claim copyright on all content they're hosting -- merely to protect YOU, of course -- so don't go thinking you own any of that, either. As if you ever did: The EULA on the software you used to create your site? Same deal: they change the EULA, and viola! Nothing you create with it is really yours, you just have a limited license to it, revokable more or less any time they decide you did, and unless you have a zillion dollars to pay a lawyer to fight it, you're screwed. And so on, and so on. Welcome to the world of SOPA: You own NOTHING.

Let's suppose someone from Time-Warner decides that "your own photography" resembles theirs? "your own videos" resemble theirs (how could *anyone* possibly have the same or similar ideas as anyone else?)

Once *someone-with-more-pull ($$)* than you decides that you're infringing on their widespread copyright/trademarks/patents, you're doomed.

You may feel that you're immune, but you won't be; there simply aren't enough checks and balances to ensure you're immune. The dollars win every time.

because I generate all its content myself. My own photography, videos, thoughts and data feeds.

Prove it. Prove that it isn't owned by someone else. Then take that evidence proving a negative to a court, fight the district attorney, convince a judge that your personal site was wrongfully blocked. And then your site will be unblocked.

Until they do it again.

(Also, the parent said "favorite sites", not "personal site". With SOPA, the DA, at the behest of content owners, could block any site that they deem is infringing their copyrights or is aiding infringement. Like if Slashdot linked to a site that explained how to bypass SOPA blocks.)

>"Ah, more fearmongering. No, my personal site will never be affected by SOPA because I generate all its content myself. My own photography, videos, thoughts and data feeds."

Bullshit! Some robot will notice that your notice that your stuff looks "copied" and you'll be gone. And if they can shove SOPA down your throat, you can be sure that you'll soon have to have a permit to have a website. And your thoughts are build on other thoughts, by the way, so they are just blatant copy-monopoly infringement.

This is NOT fear-mongering. It's already happening! Youtube is deleting stuff that "seems" bad (like critique of SOPA) because of misuse by the entertainment mafia. Google's AdSense is removing from sites that MIGHT have copied stuff on them. With SOPA the mafia can also shut people up or at least make Internet at lot less useful.

It's worth noting that the Italian Wikipedia actually did shut down for a few days, in response to a proposed law in Italy that they thought would have made it basically illegal for them to operate (apparently, it would have allowed anyone to force a website to publish a retraction of anything said about them with minimal judicial oversight). Here's the Slashdot story [slashdot.org] on the issue. They hid all content on the site while they were opposing the proposal.
So not only has this happened, on Wikipedia, but at least one major website's actually gone through with a threat like that in the past. I guess it makes it more likely that they'll go through with it again, if necessary.

You can't combat piracy. Externalities are a cost of doing business. Anyone who thinks otherwise is kidding him/herself.

There's exactly one way to maximize profit, and that is to deliver a product that people are willing to pay for at a price that they are willing to pay. The pirates were never your customers and never will be, and the sooner the companies accept that and focus on the real problems (massively overpricing everything when first released, delivering products that can't easily be moved between devices because of the restrictive/broken DRM, and the declining quality of entertainment products in general), they'll have better profits. That's not what SOPA/PIPA and similar legislation are about, however. They're about eliminating legitimate lower-cost competition.

What scares the industry most is that these days, any jackass in his home could make a movie of comparable quality to most of the non-SFX Hollywood films. Moderately high-end HD cams cost a couple of grand or three—well within the price range of most people if they are willing to save up for a bit. You can buy halogen lights at Home Depot for fifty bucks, then rebuild the reflectors yourself and build your own barn doors for just about nothing. And there are millions of people out there who can act, not just a few dozen in Hollyweird, so there's no shortage of available talent.

In effect, this means that commercial movies are too expensive by about a factor of a thousand. But instead of finding ways to take advantage of new technologies to cut their production and distribution costs, they are instead focusing on destroying new means of distribution to prevent competition. You see, YouTube is in a great position to deliver paid content from independent producers to consumers. The studios know this, and they know that if the Internet turns into anything approaching a free market, they're basically out of business. For this reason, they do everything within their power to kill such sites—not because they can be used to pirate Hollywood movies, but because they can be used to sell non-Hollywood movies without having to spend millions of dollars in infrastructure. That ability of the general public to do what the major studios do is the greatest threat to their power.

Game studios are similar. There's no reason why people who want to write games should go work for one of those sweatshops, working unholy hours for terrible pay. You can go off on your own and work with a handful of people and write a great game, sell it, and make a fair amount of money. If everyone did this, the sweatshop game studios of the world would collapse, and the Internet makes that not only possible, but downright easy. They know this, and it terrifies them. So they do what they can to create liability for any ISP that might dare to distribute software, thus discouraging the practice.

And so on. It's not about piracy. It's about control. They want to control the entire content production industry, and our Congresspeople are almost all too fucking stupid to realize that these laws only serve to turn the big studios into a state-protected oligopoly and thwart small businesses' attempts to compete. And this is why we don't have jobs in this country.

It is very apt that they're referring to it as a nuclear option, because it harms much more than just the intended target. Every visitor to a site with blackout boxes or censorship warnings will consider for a moment what their other options are. This action would be to inform people of something they probably don't realize they care about. It will cost the participants real money as customers switch to alternatives and even those who don't switch will be a little more aware that they need alternatives.

There will be fallout.

You fear corporate action to influence behavior? Many people seem to think that they have a right to the services provided, rather than realizing it can be revoked or changed at whim, and I welcome the education of the masses.

This is what the media companies want you to think. The one thing the recent NewsCorp events have taught us is how the relationship between government and media really works (in the UK at least, I imagine it's the same in the US).

NewsCorp is a protection racket. It invades the privacy of anyone in the public eye, builds up a dossier of evidence that would be uncomfortable for the person if made public, and uses that evidence to further its economic aims.

Newscorp eh? A UK politician recently openly called Newscorp a 'protection racket'. They had invaded the privacy of everyone in the public eye to dig up dirt, and were using that dirt to further their own agenda, and as leverage against politicians.

It's starting to become clear why your US senators support this thing now.